After a drilling rig is used to drill an oil or gas well and install the well casing, the rig is dismantled and removed from the site. From that point on, a well service rig typically is used to service the well. Servicing includes, among many other things, installing and removing inner tubing strings and sucker rods. When a drilling or well service rig is working on a well, it is incumbent upon the crew operating the rig to create a record of the casing, tubing, or rods installed into and removed from the well. This record is an important part of the well file, or well history, and will often be referred to at later dates during the life of the well. However, counting individual casing, tubing, or sucker rod segments, or their joints or connections, and then later correlating this count to the depths within the well of the individual casing, tubing, or rod segments, or their joints or connections, can be a laborious task that is very much susceptible to human error.
While there are many devices and methods of locating and recording tubing connections, this technology generally is applied to casing and tubing that has already been run into the well. For examples, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,032,739 and 6,003,597. Current well servicing technology does not include a means for automatically counting the number of joints or connections at the same time the casing, tubing, or rods are being pulled from or run into a well. Furthermore, there is no technology that can automatically reduce this count into database form. Finally, there is no system that can automatically give the rig operator a continuously updated rod, tubing, or casing count as these items are being run in or pulled from a well. This invention alleviates these deficiencies.